Rory McIlroy just secured a second consecutive Masters title — and the biggest prize pot to date
Winning a sixth major title in the year of a record purse, McIlroy is now the Masters’ highest-earning golfer.
After 16 previous attempts, Rory McIlroy finally banished his demons at Augusta National Golf Club last year to win the Masters Tournament and complete his career Grand Slam. Now, he finds himself in even more rarefied air, hanging onto the green jacket for 2026 as he claimed a one-shot victory over current world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler.
Yesterday’s win makes the 36-year-old Northern Irish golfer just the fourth back-to-back Masters winner in history, joining Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and Sir Nick Faldo, while taking his major count to six overall.
While McIlroy may have reached the stage of his golfing career where he measures success more by legacy than by prize money, it won’t hurt that his latest is also his most lucrative major win. By claiming the $4.5 million top prize, up from $4.2 million last year, he has also become the tournament’s highest-earning player ever.
Figures cited by Golf Digest on the top cash prize at Augusta National dating back to 1934, adjusted for inflation, show that the amount one can earn from winning the tournament has increased significantly, as the Masters’ purse has more than doubled over the last decade.
McIlroy’s reward yesterday is roughly 2.5x what Tiger Woods earned from his 2001 victory — the first winner’s share that crossed the nominal $1 million mark — and about 125x the prize awarded at the first-ever Masters in today’s dollars.
Elite club
Though Scheffler missed out on a Masters title, he still scooped ~$2.4 million for coming in second place, as this year’s record $22.5 million purse was shared between the 54 golfers who made the 36-hole cut.
But while Sunday’s win saw McIlroy become the highest earner at the Masters specifically, as many pro sports players already know, the real money often comes from sponsors and brand deals.
Even Tiger Woods, who has barely teed up in competition in the last 18 months and dominated headlines leading up to the tournament for all the wrong reasons, took home an eye-watering $45 million in off-course earnings last year, per Forbes.
